Patchnotes?

[Coranhon1]

At purpose, Chakram has the lowest damage input now, how much of enemy armor turns it useless?
Does 3 base damage + 100% through-damage compensate? Why not 4 base damage and 75% through damage?

@TestedSlinky13

Goddd. Can someone save us from that stupid Shrivamsha riders ? I am tired of losing 10 archers to 1 Shrivamsha.

Micro them. Overload the shield capacity.

[azwadkm22]

i don’t think that’s the case, specially since there was a secret beta preview from what I heard.

[SirWiedreich]

@GentleEvening5

The portugese team bonus is gonna break team games I think.

I don’t think so, but it’s definitely a strong TB, maybe up there with Spanish or Bohemians. Bulgarians and Malians already save far more time on key Blacksmith/Uni techs but it’s hard to quantify how much a 25% time saving for the whole team will help. For WB + HC allies will save ~33 seconds, and getting Cavalier/Arb and eco techs a little faster will be nice, but probably not gamebreaking. Interesting potential for lightning techs where the bonus overlaps with Bulgarians and Malians.

@casusincorrabil

But what’s really intersting is the Portugues Buff. You get basically 250 extra wood from your Berries, that’s quite a substantial boost to their economy.

Yeah, I’m not crazy about the logical aesthetics of wood from berries, but it’s a solid buff.

@TestedSlinky13

Can someone save us from that stupid Shrivamsha riders ?

I’m still hoping for a Shrivamsha nerf, if only to minimize their tanking of gunpowder/siege projectiles. Still think they have the best Cost-to-Chaos ratio of almost any unit.

@Alexios732

Why do I have a feeling, they haven’t even started making Return of Rome yet.

No need to go full doomer man, I’m not exactly blown away by their pace myself, but of course they’ve been working on it already. But yes, would be nice if they had more to show us, rather than having to rely on image leaks and speculation.

[AlphaCreator727]

PT got a nerf and CA received a buff now
At the end HCA with PT stay the same

[Alexios732]

@SirWiedreich

No need to go full doomer man

No, I don’t mean them stopping the game development (if that happens why would they bother doing those Xbox port), I just meant that either they are doing poorly on communicating with the community about the DLC, or just they haven’t make the DLC at all, which is fine for me if they just say it to our face so that I won’t be waiting any progress from the DLC until they started making it.

[Darkillermon]

They are just (very) bad at communication. It takes veeery long to make them, so they wouldnt be able to release in first semester if it was not under development, specially with this kind of project that can lead to so many bugs if not properly polished

[Mercy9545]

@SirWiedreich

Porto buffs are all good. Should especially help Portos become even more dominant on water.

I don’t think that is the case, as you don’t want to go to berries early on maps with water. Which is precisely why this is a good buff: it buffs Portuguese on land without overbuffing them on water.

[SirWiedreich]

You may be right. I’m not much of a water player, but free wood is free wood, and even with a slower gather rate, the bonus might tempt players to go berries earlier than they normally wood (pun intended). IDK, I’ll leave it to the islands players to figure out the implications of that buff on those settings.

[FurtherLime7936]

And also doesn’t affect Portuguese too much on arena where they are already a strong civ.

Plot twist: Portugal doomed Switzerland last time, Devs buff Portuguese so they are World Wide Champions XD.

[StarPeach703575]

But I like about this patch is overall more nerf than buff. Gurjaras/Poles are nerfed (also Hindustanis a little) and only Portuguese receive significant buff. It feels patch is at least right direction to prevent power creep.

What I want to see more is restricting some tech to make top civs not broken and other civs managed to deal with. Such as Khmer losing BBC and HIndustanis losing Halb is great patch to civs have too much options. I think more civs can lose BBC like Khmer to make them not too busted in imperial age.

[SMUM15236]

Portuguese and Poles change are the only meaningful change to me. Though I’m not a fan of team LOS sharing right from the start.

People were joking how they can’t wait to see patch notes only to find out Bengalis and Dravidians would suck the same as before. And how right they are! 11 Well they got a 10 food reduction on BE cost which will do nothing.

[StarPeach703575]

I am also not much fan of shared team LOS. It also makes market in team game have less value and it makes indirect buff to military building opening instead of market and blacksmith. I am not sure if it is also dev’s intended patch result.

I don’t think Bengalis and Dravidians are THAT much suck. They are not good at arabia but seems work really well in some of the settings (closed map/ water map for Bengalis and hybrid map for Dravidians.) But I am agree that 10 less food BE seems nothing. It need more building bonus damage AND less bonus damage from pike line.

[SMUM15236]

@StarPeach703575

I don’t think Bengalis and Dravidians are THAT much suck. They are not good at arabia

Which means they suck 75% of the time.

@StarPeach703575

seems work really well in some of the settings (closed map/ water map for Bengalis and hybrid map for Dravidians.)

Water+Hybrid maps = 5% game. Dravidians is arguably top 3 there. That’s good. But 95% of the game they are below 45%.

And Bengalis despite have a 50%+ W/R in closed map in general, they are barely top 15 while bottom 5 in open. Not a good situation either. Koreans and Malay also falls under this category. Both are better than Bengalis in closed maps tbh.

[StarPeach703575]

@SMUM15236

@StarPeach703575

I don’t think Bengalis and Dravidians are THAT much suck. They are not good at arabia

Which means they suck 75% of the time.

I am not sure where 75% is coming from. I see the Arabia pick rate of 900-1100 ELO (Average ELO) is 46% from www.ageofstatics.com

@SMUM15236

Water+Hybrid maps = 5% game.

I see water map+hybrid map is unpopular in ladder. But most of the tournament include hybrid maps and water maps in the map pool and play rate of those map in tournament might be more closer to 50% than 5% . Isn’t balanced game is more required to competitive scene by pros? Then we can’t say good at hybrid/water map means nothing that they were used fairly frequently in tournament.

I don’t think balance solely consider only Arabia. There is no point of encouraging variety of maps in map pool in ladder and also in tournament when only balanced map is Arabia. Might be good to close the gap between top civ and bottom civ in Arabia but cannot be all balanced.

@SMUM15236

And Bengalis despite have a 50%+ W/R in closed map in general, they are barely top 15 while bottom 5 in open. Not a good situation either. Koreans and Malay also falls under this category. Both are better than Bengalis in closed maps tbh.

Not sure about actual strength of Bengalis on closed maps. It seems pros still testing them on Arena and might have great potential with great monks and strong boom.

[SMUM15236]

Guess porto is now auto banned in every team game tournament.

[emarz4697]

huns + portuguese for very fast paladin.

[emarz4697]

@SMUM15236

Which means they suck 75% of the time.

Honestly because of a small amount of civs being garbage on certain maps (bengalis on arabia, huns and chinese on nomad, vikings on arena and bf), I think it would be amazing if they would add random civ pools. Where you can go random excluding certain civs (or including only a subset like water civs) to make sure you get variety without horribly lopsided matchups.

[SMUM15236]

@StarPeach703575

I am not sure where 75% is coming from. I see the Arabia pick rate of 900-1100 ELO (Average ELO) is 46% from www.ageofstatics.com

Sites can not be reached. Rest 30% map are very similar to Arabia tbh. Some even just a clone like Runestone.

@StarPeach703575

I see water map+hybrid map is unpopular in ladder. But most of the tournament include hybrid maps and water maps in the map pool and play rate of those map in tournament might be more closer to 50% than 5% . Isn’t balanced game is more required to competitive scene by pros? Then we can’t say good at hybrid/water map means nothing that they were used fairly frequently in tournament.

I don’t think balance solely consider only Arabia. There is no point of encouraging variety of maps in map pool in ladder and also in tournament when only balanced map is Arabia. Might be good to close the gap between top civ and bottom civ in Arabia but cannot be all balanced.

Tournament balanced is almost okay. Last few tournaments didn’t have any OP civ with 60% W/R if I recall correctly. All were 55%-60% at best despite having relatively small sample size. However ladder balance is important too.

@emarz4697

huns + portuguese for very fast paladin.

Exactly.
Britons+Franks+Huns+Portuguese = new 4v4 meta.

[SirWiedreich]

@SMUM15236

Britons+Franks+Huns

This is already kind of the case, and more so with their natural predators (Hindustanis, Gurjaras) nerfed. I maintain my agnosticism about the Porto bonus being game-breaking in TGs, particularly for archer timings, since Arb/Xbow have relatively low research times anyway. But,

@emarz4697

huns + portuguese for very fast paladin.

saving 40 seconds on cavalier + 68 on paladin is pretty strong. Would be fun to see how it plays out. If it’s too much, there’s a chance the Porto TB is nerfed to 20%, and/or the Briton/Hun/Goth bonuses are nerfed to 15% (they should be regardless, TBH).

[UnwariestRobin3]

@SMUM15236

Well they got a 10 food reduction on BE cost which will do nothing.

Malay pickers will be happy with this as their BE will cost only 77 food. Don’t know why devs keep buffing BE in ways that only Malay can use them in 1v1.

@StarPeach703575

I see water map+hybrid map is unpopular in ladder. But most of the tournament include hybrid maps and water maps in the map pool and play rate of those map in tournament might be more closer to 50% than 5% . Isn’t balanced game is more required to competitive scene by pros? Then we can’t say good at hybrid/water map means nothing that they were used fairly frequently in tournament.

Tournaments have a pick and ban and no repeat system. Dravidians get picked because they are only good in water and nowhere else. That way, pros can reserve well rounded civs for other maps. On ladder, every game is independent of the previous game you play. There are many civ matchups that happen on ladder such as Dravidians vs Mayans that never happen in tournaments. Dravidians being that good on 1 map and terrible on all others is not healthy for overall game balance.

Dravidians are like Italians used to be. Extremely powerful on water, but like a fish out of water on land maps. Italians were nerfed on water and buffed on land and now they are in a decent spot, still specializing on water/hybrid maps but also decent on land maps. Dravidians should get the same treatment.

@StarPeach703575

Not sure about actual strength of Bengalis on closed maps. It seems pros still testing them on Arena and might have great potential with great monks and strong boom.

Only when your enemy lets you play like that, which should never really happen. They are still too weak to skirms and BBC. Even in the pro games I have seen, Bengalis win when the enemy goes full infantry, but lose if they go for skirms and adapt from there, unless Bengalis get all relics.